


Holding The Line

by entanglednow



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Bodyswap, Character Death, Disturbing Themes, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-21
Updated: 2009-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:06:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adelle wakes up in the chair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding The Line

Adelle wakes up in the chair.

She knows why. Because she'd wanted to wake up fully aware, to know exactly what she'd done, and why she'd done it. She'd wanted to wake up in control.

Topher's standing beside her, hands held out in front of him. As if he was revealing some sort of amazing magic trick. Or more likely, breathless to know if it had worked. Unsurprising of him considering the circumstances.

If anything the Dollhouse looks worse than when she left it, only half the lights are working, a constant dry flickering buzz that suggests they have electricity only by the smallest margin. Half the electronics look like they've been duct-taped together.

She must have been insane.

Adelle takes a breath, fills lungs which she knows are not her own.

It's a singularly disturbing thought, though the sensation is no different at all. She'd expected, at the very least, a sense of wrongness, like perhaps wearing an ill-fitting suit, the skin too tight or too loose around her own neurons. Though the comparison seems strangely inelegant.

Instead she finds it's only strange in the fact that it isn't so strange at all. Like her brain is being fooled into believing this has been her body all along.

She wonders if the sense of cohesion will remain once she moves.

"Am I to assume that it worked?"

"You assume correct," Topher almost sounds more relieved than she feels.

Adelle doesn't have to ask who she is, because she knows her new voice.

But she looks down anyway, a surprised reflex that she can't quite stop.

It's more disconcerting than it has any right to be.

She raises an eyebrow at Topher, who can't resist a quick hysterical noise of amusement at the expression on her stolen face. Though he very quickly looks simply pained.

"It's the only body I could find," he explains and there's more than a little apology there. "The only empty body that wouldn't be missed. We don't exactly have a lot of spares just _lying_ around you know. This is the only one you could pretty much walk out with unmolested."

"I'm not protesting the necessity of the matter Topher. I'm merely viewing it as some sort of cruel and unusual punishment." Adelle stretches her fingers, though she doesn't look at them, not yet.

"You agreed," Topher points out.

Which, of course, she doesn't remember, though she feels that cursing the previous incarnation of herself for the decision is only fair.

"Yes, yes I did." She pushes herself to a sit, feels the chair move with her, clicking and rocking and not entirely stable any more. Dear god, this place is an inch from falling apart. She has to wonder exactly how many repairs Topher had to make before this was even possible.

He takes her arm and helps her to her feet, though she doesn't require it. She's perfectly capable of walking on her own. She's taller than him without heels now and she realises, absently, that she'll probably never wear heels again. Which gives her a momentary pause. It's such a small thing, it doesn't matter at all, and yet it's still strangely jarring.

"Where am I? I mean where's my body, of course."

Topher swallows.

He really doesn't have to say anything else. Adelle has become quite adept at reading his various expressions. But he obviously feels compelled to continue.

"They- you're in your office- I mean they left you in your office."

She's a little surprised at the stab of grief she experiences. Though unsure why it should surprise her. It was her body and now it's gone. How could it possibly not be a shock.

"Am I to assume I'm dead?" the flatness in her voice she'll attribute to shock as well. Though her new voice makes it hard to tell.

"You are, I mean your body is, it- they shot you in the head." Topher winces.

The flare of anger doesn't surprise her at all. She doesn't approve of extreme measures being used unnecessarily. She thinks, perhaps, she should be flattered that they considered her dangerous enough to eliminate with extreme prejudice. But she's too angry to be flattered.

She exhales, one long hard noise that isn't the slightest bit female.

"How are you- I mean, how do you feel?" Topher asks cautiously.

Adelle thinks about it for a second rather than reacting from the gut.

"My swift and unexpectedly disturbing introduction to male genitalia aside, I feel perfectly fine," she tells him.

"Boyd can only keep the security people busy for so long-"

"Which is the reason we should leave," Adelle's walking before she realises it. In full control of her own legs. And though she experiences a brief moment of unsettled wrongness her body knows exactly how to walk with a penis. Which is both comforting and horribly disturbing, but she has little choice but to trust it.

Adelle's feet make quiet little slap-slap noises on the floor, and though she's a good deal larger and more solid than she used to be it doesn’t feel like it, or rather it doesn't feel _wrong_. She suspects she's in excellent shape, which should be some consolation. But really isn't, considering she's the wrong sort of shape.

The doors into the main building are still unlocked. Though since the only future for the house is utter destruction that isn't really so very surprising.

"He said he'd leave some clothes and a phone in the bathroom," Topher tells her. Adelle most sincerely hopes he's left her a gun as well. She isn't sure she wants to risk getting through the building, and the city, without one.

Two empty corridors later her stolen heart is beating tension fast, but the bathroom is deserted. There's a bag waiting by the sink. Which Topher heads for and digs an arm in.

Adelle is rather more distracted by the mirrors along the wall.

She loses all her breath in one go. If it didn't feel quite real before then it certainly does now, when Dominic stares back at her.

"It almost didn't feel real before now you know," she tells Topher thinly, and she can be forgiven, she thinks, for the shake in her voice.

He's fidgeting with the phone that came out of the bag.

"It's real," Topher tells her quietly and he still sounds so very apologetic about it.

Adelle frowns into the mirror.

"Dominic's eyes always were too close together- and that is very disconcerting," she frowns at herself, and tries desperately to think of this as her own face.

Topher's fidgeting behind her, all hands and restless air of guilt.

"If there had been any other body, I wouldn't have picked him, I swear."

Adelle grunts- and that, that sounds exactly like Dominic.

Topher clears his throat, it seems likely that he wants to say something else, and Adelle sees no reason not to let him. If anyone has gone above and beyond then it's Topher. No matter that he's always had a furious need to know things he shouldn’t.

"Ask if you want to Topher," she looks up, catches his eye in the mirror.

He looks awkward for a few brief seconds, then gives in and shakes his head.

"Why did you do this anyway?"

Adelle exhales, her new reflection briefly fogged out under her own breath.

"Because I always try to remember the rules, especially when everything is going to hell."

"The rules?"

Topher really does hate not to know things.

"Be ruthless, always have an escape plan, and everyone is expendable."

He raises an eyebrow at her in the mirror.

"Everyone," she says emphatically at the unasked question.

"And people wonder why I always complained about job security."

"Oh, you were less expendable than most," Adelle allows.

She stretches out the edge of her t-shirt, then stops, very conscious of the fact that she's not wearing anything underneath it. Not that it matters now, she no longer has breasts, but there's still an unshakeable feeling that she's about to do something inappropriate.

"Oh for heaven's sake," she strips the t-shirt off, drops it on the sinks, aware immediately of the prickle of cold air on her bare skin, but determined to ignore it.

Topher stops rustling in the bag he's holding and stares at her.

"This is strangely awkward," he admits.

Adelle gestures, irritated and impatient for the clothes.

"Because, honestly, Dominic was scary and you're scary, therefore you inside Dominic's body is sort of the 'Ubermensch' of scary." Topher gestures in a way Adelle suspects she's supposed to understand.

She sighs and takes a step, tugs the bag out of his hands and sets it down on the sink.

There's a suit inside, thankfully not wrapped in plastic she'd rather not leave any clues here. She starts pulling it out, laying it neatly where she can get to it. Shirt, pants, jacket, shoes, boxer shorts- dear god- boxer shorts. She huffs completely inappropriate laughter.

She pushes her hands into the loose pants common to all the dolls and then comes to another stuttering halt.

She has a lot of faith in her own emotional strength but really there are some things that are bound to throw you off kilter.

Completely.

This is most assuredly one of them.

"I'm not-" she stops, quite aware that she doesn't particularly want to share what she's currently thinking with Topher.

"I've never seen Dominic naked," Topher provides, possibly in the hopes that a random observation will help the situation.

"Oddly enough neither have I," Adelle doesn't quite manage not to sound curious. Though she's not entirely sure exactly how much she's Dominic and how much she's herself at this point, and whether random nudity is appropriate to the situation. Depending on who's random and unexpected nudity it actually is. Though she's fairly sure that now is the worst possible time to be having an existential crisis.

She still hasn't moved, staring at her bare feet, her new bare feet, with an oddly awkward sort of resistance.

"Do you want me to turn around?" Topher's voice is a strange mixture of awkward and uncertain, but he's still fidgeting in that way he has when he thinks he's done something marvellous but quite possibly also slightly terrible.

Mad scientists used to be so much more predictable, she thinks absently.

"Oh for heaven's sake," she pushes and the material slithers down her legs and hits the floor.

It is something of a shock to find herself in the body of a naked man, in a bathroom, with one of her subordinates. Probably not what all good therapists would have suggested. She has, for all intents and purposes thrown herself in at the deep end. Though the plan was the plan and she'd never expected to be male.

She'd never expected to be male.

She turns to the sink, breathing in long, slow breaths, and she can see her own hipbones in the mirror, just the edges, before it cuts off and becomes tiles and porcelain. She's aware that she can't dawdle forever, and she's lost the right to wear lingerie. Though pulling on her new underwear is a more than disturbing experience that she will consider a success only in as far as she ends up wearing it.

The shirt is simple enough, though she seems longer and stronger than she used to be, a fraction too much enthusiasm and the sound of stitching protesting makes her freeze and take two deep breaths. She's clearly not as calm as she would have liked. The fabric meets in the middle, cuffs loose over her hands and she can't do up the damn buttons. Her hands are refusing to cooperate, and she can't quite work out why it's so hard, only that are fingers are completely wrong and she's going to tear something properly in a minute-

Topher takes two steps towards her and takes the buttons out of her hands, starts slipping them through their holes.

He's pulling a strange face, like he can't quite believe what he's doing.

She really wants to protest that she can dress herself, but she's also half afraid that she can't, that she'll make a tragic mess of it and promptly fall into hysterics, which is unacceptable.

She's aware, suddenly, of how much bigger she is than him now. Not just taller. It wouldn't be the first time she's looked down at him. She takes up more space now.

When Topher finishes she steps back, fidgets with the cuffs for something meaningless to do. She's not so much unwilling as unprepared to find herself jarred into indecision by her new skin.

"Pants," Topher reminds her, like she may have forgotten how to dress herself entirely, she proves she has not by sliding them up her legs.

But even that isn't the same, clearly.

"You might want to umm-" he gestures again, another one of those completely indecipherable movements. "You might want to move your-" he clearly can't manage anything more than that. Though it's quite obvious what he's blathering about this time.

She really hopes she doesn't look as horrified as she currently feels.

Topher looks at her for a long second, and she refuses to give him anything but fierce insistent refusal.

"That's going to be really uncomfortable, and if we have to run."

"I think I've reached my 'disturbed' quota for today, don't you."

"It's yours now," he says carefully. Like she might have forgotten, or neglected to realise.

"Yes, thank you for that timely reminder Topher, it's appreciated. Though my knowledge of which way I like to dress is sadly lacking. It doesn't exactly come printed in the personnel files."

"You want to-." Topher clears his throat, uncertainly, and makes some sort of complicated and fairly vulgar gesture.

"Yes, because that's ever so helpful."

He fists his hands, takes two steps and lays a hand uncertainly on the crisp edge of her shirt.

She stares at it, somewhat bemused.

Until her belt clanks gently on the sink and Topher's hand slides into the front of her shorts.

All the breath shudders out of her.

A part of her she was quite happy to ignore is suddenly making that impossible. Topher's hand is warmer than it has any right to be; not just touching but moving and she makes a noise in her throat, then catches Topher's wrist and forces it into stillness, and he winces, ever so slightly.

That isn't much better, there's still a push of knuckles against what's now clearly hers, whether she wants it or not.

"If you keep my hand there pretty soon you're going to have a whole other problem," Topher says very carefully.

She realises, immediately, what he's insinuating and that isn't something she's prepared to experience. So she forces herself to let go of his wrist.

There's a very slight pause before he slips it free and for a second Adelle isn't sure what on earth she was doing.

"Sorry," Topher's voice is more than a little strained. "I thought time was...of the essence."

"I forgive you for feeling me up," Adelle tells him flatly in a voice that, thankfully, is appropriately sensible, and does up her pants and belt with shaking hands.

When she looks up again Topher is fishing in the bottom of the bag.

Possibly so he no longer has to look at her.

He finds something she missed though, he very carefully pulls a gun out of the bottom, paper rustling as he drags it all the way out.

"I'll take that," Adelle very carefully relieves Topher of the weapon, checks it's loaded and the safety's on, then slips it into the back of her pants, and it's surprising how much that gesture feels familiar.

Then Adelle scrunches up the bag and leaves it in the trash.

Her suit jacket fits perfectly.

She lays a hand on Topher's shoulder, tugs him very carefully in the direction of the door.

"You said Boyd will be waiting for us outside?"

"All we have to do is get there."

"Well," Adelle says as she pushes the door open and finds the long corridor empty. "It's a good job no one's looking for me."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Holding the Line [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/766953) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




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